Because Microsoft was making the OS, whose undocumented (private API) calls they were using in their office products, to enable them to out-perform the competition.
Much like Apple wrote the OS and is also competing on the App store. And Apple of course has no rules about what technologies it can use it its apps, and can see the internals of all its competitors' apps.
As if applications are unable to check the OS version they're running on, or API availability, and use the appropriate methods for each.
No, using a non-stable API is a reason to flag the app with a warning, because without special care, yes, it will break. But with any special care it's perfectly reasonable and allows all sorts of debugging you just can't do because the stable APIs, by necessity, can't be that complete.
So are you. Unfortunately you're focusing only on the trolls who validate your already held prejudices.
Would it help if I went back to roughly last week and found an example of myself saying "Flash sucks, but..."? Would you admit that your opponents have a real point and presented it consistently?
Because I'm not going to bother if you'll just brush it off with yet another excuse.
No, those who know the industry get bitchy when someone leverages a monopoly in one area to destroy competition in another. The banning of Flash was political, not technological. (There were no tech metrics given, only PR ones)
It seems like just yesterday that the plucky fruit company was itself besieged by shithead monopolists, and whining about the injustice.
Nope. I've always hated Flash, both because of its instability and its co-opting of standards.
But I still didn't want Apple to just ban it outright. I want to market to out-compete it. If Flash drains the battery, add battery-consumption tests to app approval and don't let in anything that does, Flash or not.
No, that's not it. I don't care if Apple "gets" it. It's that I object to them being called "developer friendly" when they clearly aren't - to selected developers and some random ones. It does a disservice to companies who really are developer friendly for Apple to just claim it like a trademark.
I mind them saying they're open source friendly when they mean they're extremely not open-source friendly but have merely stopped forbidding applications with open source.
They sell themselves as the people's device, but then they spit on the people at every step.
Their preciously tended UI experience, or its limits - even where they seem juvenile to me, aren't what bug me about Apple. I merely don't own an iPhone because I don't agree. No biggy.
I also don't own any Microsoft products and yet I feel free to criticize their anti-competitive practices. They're pissing on my industry, they can take my scorn. Same as Apple. Same as anyone who picks and chooses which parts of open to allow to their users while feasting on the benefits themselves.
Well, that and the ban against Flash clearly wasn't just about an actual suck-metric reached, but Job's political decision to punish a troublesome partner.
Ahh yes, because the tactic of felating the naysayers when saying uncomfortable things works so well. Let me guess, you're now in favor of keeping Guantanamo open out of spite? Bummer. You were going to do so much for the cause.
If you're calling our foray into Iraq "ill-conceived" instead of criminal you are part of the problem. Butchering innocent people without bothering to check your facts is murder. For the USA to follow this up by planning attacks on specific other counties, who you'd no-doubt attack with the same standards of non-proof, is what makes it threatening.
Congrats on managing to add me as a foe. I'm sure it'll make it easier for you to avoid dissenting or unpleasant viewpoints in the future.
You're just being deliberately confrontational here. When you go in with the attitude, "hey, fuck you, I'll do whatever the hell I want", you're not starting off with a very cooperative attitude is all I'm saying. It's Apple's store, if you're asking them to sell your product, walking in with your middle finger in the air isn't the most rational way of getting things off the ground.
No, you're just assuming that anyone not doing exactly what Apple wants is confrontational - not perhaps that they were doing their own thing and now Apple is trying to force THEM to change.
Open source, by definition, is about the user having the source, and excepting the Apple/Tivo bastardization, about the user about able to build that source to do whatever they want.
If the manufacturer is trying to tell you how the open source must be configured they clearly don't understand the open part of open source.
GPL != open source, it's just one license. Apple is very open source compatible. The core of their OS is open source. WebKit, and literally dozens of other things are open source at Apple.
Yeah, Apple is VERY open source. They'll use whatever is out there, but they'll tivoize your device to make sure you can't. Very open of them.
And Apple's main concession to allowing open source is not rejecting projects whose source is open. They don't have to do anything to support the BSDL, for example, so it's a gimmie. The only ones they'd have to be compatible with are the GPL, for example, and there they are only through a loophole. They certainly aren't GPLv3 compatible.
The GPL, for all its benefits, is notoriously non-compatible. It's not even compatible with other open source licenses. You can't say that Apple isn't compatible with open source just because it's not compatible with the GPL (an unclear statement itself, but let's go ahead and assume it for the moment). BSD isn't compatible with the GPL. In fact, very few open source licenses are compatible with the GPL.
OMG, it's the license's fault. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize. We'll just go get a license that doesn't try to guarantee user freedom then. Sorry for all the fuss, Guv.
BSD isn't compatible with the GPL.
Let's come back to that for a sec though... the new (non-attribution) BSDL is actually totally compatible with the GPL. One of the many fine things you can do with BSDL code is re-license it under the shiny new AGPLv3.
I don't know what you're talking about here. Appidium is discussing it right now. But going in with a "fuck you, I'll do what I want" attitude, while your right, isn't starting things off on the right foot.
No, it's fake cooperation, because in a real cooperative process you don't need permission to build open source software.
And I'm not sure how you're hearing "I'm going to do the UI like this" as "FUCK YOU MOM! FUCK YOU DAD! I'M TAKING THE CAR!". It's not like you're mandating they adopt a new UI or anything.
It's simply that it's open source. In any sane world the decision is yours. Waiting for Apple to authorize your choices in the software you build for yourself and to distribute to friends is servile. If they were your employer you'd do this. Why otherwise?
Not in the slightest. What's an argument to you kid? Shaking your user IDs at each other while shouting "Nuh uh"? Points are raised, answered, dissected. Claims are made, and tested. He can be the illustrious whatever he wants but if he dodges the issue he's proven nothing.
I'm not challenging him on the iOS build environment, or his UI design skills. I'm discussing issues other developers have that he, by his very admission, has never seen and has heard very little about.
I'm bringing up questions from the news: "this uncertainty, what if it happened to you?"
He on the other hand is saying quite plainly that that never happened and besides, stopped sometime last year, but that reports are largely fabricated.
I see risk. A company I worked for recently was building a PBX and one of the risks they had to disclose to investors, and they weren't even publicly traded yet, was that the whole system simply wouldn't get through regulatory testing despite otherwise working. And this is government regulatory testing at an independent lab, not Apple's totally opaque approval process.
I see that risk here. If you wrote an app, and as a programmer about half of what I write is small dev tweaks - I assume others are similar, that DID step on Apple's toes, what then? I don't see any clear guidelines on exactly what is not allowed. What I do see is Apple sitting on things for months, refusing to say anything, threatening and punishing those who speak out (though being swayed back again by intense PR), but never actually giving a firm reason that you can work with because they don't want to appear to everyone else to be hostile to development.
Instead of talking about the risk and how to avoid it he sidestepped the issue and talked about all the apps that do get approved - as if the trivial approval process for yet another pedometer, or calculator, is in any way related to what goes on when Apple plays rough. It's as if I asked a question about how many people get mugged and the city PR person says "Over a million people safely enjoy our city every day." A total non-answer.
And as for the dev sessions, I simply disagree. They charge to see the presentation in person because seats are limited because of your chance to see people but the video of the presentations are never comparatively useful. Once you get past the extra time spent on introductions and chatter you've still got to slog along at their pace. Far more useful at that point, in a strict sense, is if they've summarized the talk and given the demo code. The video is more about seeing other developers, "meeting" the personalities, and community building. Not useless, but not something the developer should be paying for - it's Apple's community - dev's already bought in with their phones. And especially since it could reach a wider audience if it were open.
But then there's the thing... Charge for something, keep some people out, and you've made it more precious to some others. They could make the dev tools free, to support kids who want to get into it, as I myself started coding on an Apple 2+ long before I could have afforded dev tools. But they don't. It costs them more to host the video with access controls rather than simply make it available, but they feel that barrier is necessary. Why?
So you added a totally irrelevant and inaccurate point to the discussion and don't see why you'd get beat up for it. Ooookay.
Ummm, beat up for it. R. O. F. L. More like flailed at by a wet nerd.
And I meant it, as an example of what would be going through their head - ie, sillyness, not as an actual literal example of something they could build.
What you think Rackspace should do with their property is none of your business and they're free to ignore your opinion.
Sure sure, but they're wrong to do so. Both morally and financially.
Don't hire them if you don't like their policies, but this sense that you're entitled to tell them what to do with their equipment is ludicrous.
I am. They aren't required to listen, but I am so entitled.
The literal meaning is irrelevant. "Internet Service Provider" has a specific definition, and all the talk on your part doesn't change that meaning. Rackspace is NOT an ISP.
No, it doesn't. It has more common meanings but it doesn't have one certified definition. It's a provider of internet service. Hosting is one internet service, providing subscriber access is another.
The phone company IS a service provider. They move the call from point a to point b, and that's their only function. They do not host the content of the call.
They move the call from where it originates to another place. Much like Rackspace moves your data from your server to the person who requests it.
The person speaking can be thought of to be the content provider, and the person listening can be thought of to be the end user of that content, but the phone company has nothing to do with either party except to provide them the connection.
Yes, exactly. Just like a hosting provider.
Rackspace, however, does NOT provide the connection, but does in fact host the content.
Without a connection they'd be storing your server in a box, not hosting your data. But considering Rackspace offers uptime guarantees I'll assume you're just wrong again.
It's been established that the Ruby interpreter has been slower than most other interpreters. This was the regrettable case when I used Ruby last. I would be excited to learn that it has improved recently.
I'm sure it's always improving in some ways, but overall, no. And it seems generally accepted that it'll be that way - the syntax is more complex than usual, etc. And the community seems fairly willing, as a whole, to write C to work around the issue.
I simply think that the Ruby compiler issues are unfortunate
Really? Well, I guess you're in something where every percent counts, but I've never found a practical difference, I'm always IO bound, algorithm bound, etc. Whenever I get past inefficient algorithms and down to the last little speed difference I can always get more out by optimizing the rest of the problem, caching, etc, than rewriting in C. (Though I'm not massively C proficient.)
Though there are horrid counter-examples, like trying to write a game cheater that watched a large number of addresses and imported their values into irb. That got a bit slow when evaling a ton of things into various bindings and would have been much-better handled at a lower level.
Scripting engines do tend to make an incredible amount of comparisons.
And doing them with strings. Ouch. This is the sort of stuff I always find though, low-hanging fruit that vastly outweighs the general parsing costs.
Are you trying to say that Rackspace is an Internet Service Provider? I just want to be clear, because if you are, I'm absolutely stunned by the number of people on Slashdot who don't know what that term means.
By the literal meaning, they are.
It doesn't matter that they don't provide residential service.
Let me get this straight, you think that the only defense against liability is to ignore ALL content on your machines, and have NO terms of service agreement?
Yes. In a social fashion and roughly as a legal principle. That's how phone-companies work. If there's a complaint the police can call and get records, but they do absolutely no policing of content.
If they did screen, admitting it needs to be done, they could be found to be doing it badly. By keeping a hands-off policy they avoid the risk, legal and political.
That doesn't even make sense. If the plans are "illegal", the account would have to be shut down whether there's a TOS in place or not.
Yes, the police can get the phone company to terminate the service of someone breaking the law. But the phone company itself doesn't monitor calls for illegal content, nor shut anyone off themselves except for late payment.
In order for Rackspace to be a walled garden, it would require that people get Rackspace accounts, which enables them to only view Rackspace content without the option to access the greater Internet.
No, my point was that it sound silly. I didn't think you'd get so worked up about it.
I mean, what do they think, that they're creating some safe little AOL type thing? No, of course not. So all they're doing is caving to pressure and kicking an unpopular customer. In doing so they're establishing a practical, if not legal, precedent that they'll cave on their customers over anything that generates enough bad PR.
They should instead refuse the censor even the haters. Everyone finds something hateful - to some people mocking religion is a crime, to others it's a well-respected standup routine. And only a complete hands-off policy will protect them from justified complaints of bias towards some special interests.
If they agree with the special interest they should give them a free account specifically for the purpose of showing up the haters. That'd actually do something - otherwise the haters will just get another server and spew their stupid from darker corners.
All they've done this way is show they're unwilling to stand up for their customers.
What's sticking it to Apple about releasing open source in a "non certified" state? That's the whole point of open source, that users can choose how it works.
If Apple thinks they can exert control here they aren't really open source compatible except via the tivo-loophole and they need to be more honest about it.
And yeah, it's called "cooperation" in those air-quotes because it goes one way only. You sit and wait while Apple does who the hell knows what, leaves you hanging, and you "cooperate" by not discussing the issue on your blog where it might make them look bad.
And thus we have a demonstration of that "fight the power!" attitude I mentioned.
Do I get points if I called "Pretentious Dweeb" earlier in the evening? Or do I just score you under the bonus section?
But it's also still a curated platform, and Apple will maintain absolute and unflinching control over the end-user experience, period. There is no pretense or duplicity on this point. Anyone who's not comfortable with that fact ought to stay away from the platform.
Yeah, they're pretty clear about that.
They do support some FOSS, quite explicitly, and their agreements have been revised specifically to make this clear.
They support the bare minimum to qualify for the GPLv2 through the tivo-loophole. But that's not very open, and Apple shouldn't be calling themselves open-source friendly when their only concession is not refusing apps whose source has been published.
This is not a contradiction, and it's not arbitrary "cruelty",
Of course it's not arbitrary, like everything they do to their users it's to make them money. It's still a series of arbitrary restriction to the user, which amount to cruelty because they're intentional crippling of the device. Apple is going to more work to provide a lesser product simply because the user is more easily monetized.
And yes, it's a contradiction to open source. If you support open source you support the user doing what they want with their software. I am told that iPhone users can't even create applications for their own use, or modify open source, without paying to become developers or jailbreaking and pirating the tools. (Or is this incorrect?)
and being willing to work within this framework isn't "servile".
I didn't bother to read the rest of your response; I'll summarize all of it by stating you're very probably wrong in each particular and leaving the exact details as an exercise to far better informed readers than yourself.
As is customary I give you the last response since Apple Haters never cease talking no matter how far they end up digging a hole in their technical rep.
No, of course you didn't. You certainly didn't read it, fail to answer the points and run away.
You of course have an awesome answer to how you hand-wave away the risk that Apple just stalls your next project. I'm sure the problem is just that by now the post isn't wide enough to contain your wisdom.
Except you have to have access controls around video to limit it to registered developers - Doh! On your part there.
Except if you didn't limit it to developers you wouldn't need access controls. Doh, to you.
Yes, I can tell you're not a developer at all since you have no appreciation for SDK documentation and help. Wallowing in your own ignorance and proclaiming it good is hardly healthy I would say.
Do they want developers or not? I have no appreciation for a company that charges for development tools unless they include hardware.
Once they've had that developer's conference and recorded the video, and put it on the web, why can't they go that extra little bit and make it available to everyone?
Waiting until Apple can give feedback on it, as long as the wait is not too long, is a way to demonstrate to Apple that you're acting in good faith and attempting to comply with their policies and processes. It shows that if Apple finds a minor fault with the app and requests something be changed, they're willing to wait to incorporate those changes before letting non-compliant versions get "out into the wild".
What a toadying and servile response. It's open source, what the fuck business do they have saying they support it if they're trying to quash non-approved changes.
This is the state of Apple developers though, always sucking up and rationalizing away every cruel thing Apple does, as their world revolves so entirely around it.
Being a dick with your API, and refusing to let someone into your app store on technicalities certainly counts, is one of Microsoft's signature moves. Way to go Jobs, think just like the other shithead monopolist.
You have decided that the video was a war crime. No court has. In fact I have not heard any court in the US or the UN even saying that it was war crime.
Not the video, the actions it records.
And since when did anyone ask the opinion of the perpetrators or the organizations they belong to? A war crime is in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Let me explain to you why this wasn't an illegal order first.
An order is illegal if it leads to any grave injustice, despite any legal aspect is may have.
1. The video was requested by the press. Not a court of law or a court order. The request was refused by the Civil government.
An uninformed electorate can't give consent. By definition a government that keeps secrets cannot be legitimate.
Such an order, to not release a video of the slaying of civilians for civilian oversight, is obviously illegal.
Manning was not ordered to suppress the video. He took it on himself to release the video.
I imagine standing orders covered the release of all information, but that's beside the point.
You're required to do the right thing. Anyone discovering unnecessarily classified recordings of a slaying would rightly suspect a cover-up, and thus be morally obliged to remove it.
Frankly none of the solders involved would have been hung a Nuremberg. They probably wouldn't even have gone to court. No military court would convict them.
No military court (of Germany) would have convicted the Nazis either.
I don't know what court you're imagining though where responding to charges that you murdered civilian rescuers can be answered with "Serves them right for bringing their kids into battle".
Please you are trying to tell me that you didn't know that a journalist was killed in a helicopter action?
Hadn't heard that piece of news specifically, no. And the stories I've since seen didn't say his camera was mistaken for a rocket launcher leading to his death and that of many other innocent victims.
Or that Civilans had been caught in such actions?
That some civilians are caught by mistake, yes. That they're in our guys sights, totally unable to escape, and we won't even take basic measures to see if they are enemies despite our operating in a civilian occupied area, no. I didn't know we were quite that sloppy when we have the time and tools to do better.
And I didn't know they'd brush off the killing of the rescuers, blaming the victims, instead of treating it like a mistake and trying to prevent it in the future.
That's where accident crossed the line to war crime.
I know this will tick you off but I watched the video. [And I agree]
No, you've got a third-grade writing level and an intellect to match. I expect you to see what you've been told to expect, to make snap judgments, and to bend facts to support your views.
I expect better in oversight roles in our army though.
You were the one who chose to interpret that as Java being slow.
Knowing what the anti-VM crowd harp on is different than choosing to interpret it.
Ruby interoping with native libraries is cheating.
Yeah sure. A well written program spends as much time in native libraries as possible.
Games programmers actually profile their code
If you do, Bethesda has a role you because they sure as hell don't. Oblivion spends most of its time comparing strings. Or maybe they just optimized that strcmp really well.
Slashdot Mirror
No, you don't, because it didn't happen. Of course. That was the default condition. Why would their stock rise on news of "Today, same as yesterday"?
Because Microsoft was making the OS, whose undocumented (private API) calls they were using in their office products, to enable them to out-perform the competition.
Much like Apple wrote the OS and is also competing on the App store. And Apple of course has no rules about what technologies it can use it its apps, and can see the internals of all its competitors' apps.
As if applications are unable to check the OS version they're running on, or API availability, and use the appropriate methods for each.
No, using a non-stable API is a reason to flag the app with a warning, because without special care, yes, it will break. But with any special care it's perfectly reasonable and allows all sorts of debugging you just can't do because the stable APIs, by necessity, can't be that complete.
But then, you see, someone could connect to a network with a weak signal and have a degraded user experience.
No, far better it be hidden so they don't know what they're missing.
Meh, at least we'll be able to customize our tools. Could be worse.
So are you. Unfortunately you're focusing only on the trolls who validate your already held prejudices.
Would it help if I went back to roughly last week and found an example of myself saying "Flash sucks, but ..."? Would you admit that your opponents have a real point and presented it consistently?
Because I'm not going to bother if you'll just brush it off with yet another excuse.
No, those who know the industry get bitchy when someone leverages a monopoly in one area to destroy competition in another. The banning of Flash was political, not technological. (There were no tech metrics given, only PR ones)
It seems like just yesterday that the plucky fruit company was itself besieged by shithead monopolists, and whining about the injustice.
Nope. I've always hated Flash, both because of its instability and its co-opting of standards.
But I still didn't want Apple to just ban it outright. I want to market to out-compete it. If Flash drains the battery, add battery-consumption tests to app approval and don't let in anything that does, Flash or not.
No, that's not it. I don't care if Apple "gets" it. It's that I object to them being called "developer friendly" when they clearly aren't - to selected developers and some random ones. It does a disservice to companies who really are developer friendly for Apple to just claim it like a trademark.
I mind them saying they're open source friendly when they mean they're extremely not open-source friendly but have merely stopped forbidding applications with open source.
They sell themselves as the people's device, but then they spit on the people at every step.
Their preciously tended UI experience, or its limits - even where they seem juvenile to me, aren't what bug me about Apple. I merely don't own an iPhone because I don't agree. No biggy.
I also don't own any Microsoft products and yet I feel free to criticize their anti-competitive practices. They're pissing on my industry, they can take my scorn. Same as Apple. Same as anyone who picks and chooses which parts of open to allow to their users while feasting on the benefits themselves.
Pretty much exactly.
Well, that and the ban against Flash clearly wasn't just about an actual suck-metric reached, but Job's political decision to punish a troublesome partner.
Apple only makes decisions based on user happiness, don't 'cha know?
Last week users would have been unhappy if their apps could be developed in Flash, this week it would please them.
There's NOTHING political going on here. (Well, nothing more than the original ban...)
And yeah, now us Flash haters get our real fun - Adobe will get its chance and blow it because Flash really does suck! I'm going to go get popcorn.
Ahh yes, because the tactic of felating the naysayers when saying uncomfortable things works so well. Let me guess, you're now in favor of keeping Guantanamo open out of spite? Bummer. You were going to do so much for the cause.
If you're calling our foray into Iraq "ill-conceived" instead of criminal you are part of the problem. Butchering innocent people without bothering to check your facts is murder. For the USA to follow this up by planning attacks on specific other counties, who you'd no-doubt attack with the same standards of non-proof, is what makes it threatening.
Congrats on managing to add me as a foe. I'm sure it'll make it easier for you to avoid dissenting or unpleasant viewpoints in the future.
When we had no patents or trade restrictions the people who do things were free to do so and did.
Now that we're full of nothing but restrictions and rent-seeking parasites those who can, leave.
Fixated on dick?
There's a shot for that.
You're just being deliberately confrontational here. When you go in with the attitude, "hey, fuck you, I'll do whatever the hell I want", you're not starting off with a very cooperative attitude is all I'm saying. It's Apple's store, if you're asking them to sell your product, walking in with your middle finger in the air isn't the most rational way of getting things off the ground.
No, you're just assuming that anyone not doing exactly what Apple wants is confrontational - not perhaps that they were doing their own thing and now Apple is trying to force THEM to change.
Open source, by definition, is about the user having the source, and excepting the Apple/Tivo bastardization, about the user about able to build that source to do whatever they want.
If the manufacturer is trying to tell you how the open source must be configured they clearly don't understand the open part of open source.
GPL != open source, it's just one license. Apple is very open source compatible. The core of their OS is open source. WebKit, and literally dozens of other things are open source at Apple.
Yeah, Apple is VERY open source. They'll use whatever is out there, but they'll tivoize your device to make sure you can't. Very open of them.
And Apple's main concession to allowing open source is not rejecting projects whose source is open. They don't have to do anything to support the BSDL, for example, so it's a gimmie. The only ones they'd have to be compatible with are the GPL, for example, and there they are only through a loophole. They certainly aren't GPLv3 compatible.
The GPL, for all its benefits, is notoriously non-compatible. It's not even compatible with other open source licenses. You can't say that Apple isn't compatible with open source just because it's not compatible with the GPL (an unclear statement itself, but let's go ahead and assume it for the moment). BSD isn't compatible with the GPL. In fact, very few open source licenses are compatible with the GPL.
OMG, it's the license's fault. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize. We'll just go get a license that doesn't try to guarantee user freedom then. Sorry for all the fuss, Guv.
BSD isn't compatible with the GPL.
Let's come back to that for a sec though... the new (non-attribution) BSDL is actually totally compatible with the GPL. One of the many fine things you can do with BSDL code is re-license it under the shiny new AGPLv3.
I don't know what you're talking about here. Appidium is discussing it right now. But going in with a "fuck you, I'll do what I want" attitude, while your right, isn't starting things off on the right foot.
No, it's fake cooperation, because in a real cooperative process you don't need permission to build open source software.
And I'm not sure how you're hearing "I'm going to do the UI like this" as "FUCK YOU MOM! FUCK YOU DAD! I'M TAKING THE CAR!". It's not like you're mandating they adopt a new UI or anything.
It's simply that it's open source. In any sane world the decision is yours. Waiting for Apple to authorize your choices in the software you build for yourself and to distribute to friends is servile. If they were your employer you'd do this. Why otherwise?
Why can't they cooperate without air quotes?
Not in the slightest. What's an argument to you kid? Shaking your user IDs at each other while shouting "Nuh uh"? Points are raised, answered, dissected. Claims are made, and tested. He can be the illustrious whatever he wants but if he dodges the issue he's proven nothing.
I'm not challenging him on the iOS build environment, or his UI design skills. I'm discussing issues other developers have that he, by his very admission, has never seen and has heard very little about.
I'm bringing up questions from the news: "this uncertainty, what if it happened to you?"
He on the other hand is saying quite plainly that that never happened and besides, stopped sometime last year, but that reports are largely fabricated.
I see risk. A company I worked for recently was building a PBX and one of the risks they had to disclose to investors, and they weren't even publicly traded yet, was that the whole system simply wouldn't get through regulatory testing despite otherwise working. And this is government regulatory testing at an independent lab, not Apple's totally opaque approval process.
I see that risk here. If you wrote an app, and as a programmer about half of what I write is small dev tweaks - I assume others are similar, that DID step on Apple's toes, what then? I don't see any clear guidelines on exactly what is not allowed. What I do see is Apple sitting on things for months, refusing to say anything, threatening and punishing those who speak out (though being swayed back again by intense PR), but never actually giving a firm reason that you can work with because they don't want to appear to everyone else to be hostile to development.
Instead of talking about the risk and how to avoid it he sidestepped the issue and talked about all the apps that do get approved - as if the trivial approval process for yet another pedometer, or calculator, is in any way related to what goes on when Apple plays rough. It's as if I asked a question about how many people get mugged and the city PR person says "Over a million people safely enjoy our city every day." A total non-answer.
And as for the dev sessions, I simply disagree. They charge to see the presentation in person because seats are limited because of your chance to see people but the video of the presentations are never comparatively useful. Once you get past the extra time spent on introductions and chatter you've still got to slog along at their pace. Far more useful at that point, in a strict sense, is if they've summarized the talk and given the demo code. The video is more about seeing other developers, "meeting" the personalities, and community building. Not useless, but not something the developer should be paying for - it's Apple's community - dev's already bought in with their phones. And especially since it could reach a wider audience if it were open.
But then there's the thing... Charge for something, keep some people out, and you've made it more precious to some others. They could make the dev tools free, to support kids who want to get into it, as I myself started coding on an Apple 2+ long before I could have afforded dev tools. But they don't. It costs them more to host the video with access controls rather than simply make it available, but they feel that barrier is necessary. Why?
So you added a totally irrelevant and inaccurate point to the discussion and don't see why you'd get beat up for it. Ooookay.
Ummm, beat up for it. R. O. F. L. More like flailed at by a wet nerd.
And I meant it, as an example of what would be going through their head - ie, sillyness, not as an actual literal example of something they could build.
What you think Rackspace should do with their property is none of your business and they're free to ignore your opinion.
Sure sure, but they're wrong to do so. Both morally and financially.
Don't hire them if you don't like their policies, but this sense that you're entitled to tell them what to do with their equipment is ludicrous.
I am. They aren't required to listen, but I am so entitled.
The literal meaning is irrelevant. "Internet Service Provider" has a specific definition, and all the talk on your part doesn't change that meaning. Rackspace is NOT an ISP.
No, it doesn't. It has more common meanings but it doesn't have one certified definition. It's a provider of internet service. Hosting is one internet service, providing subscriber access is another.
The phone company IS a service provider. They move the call from point a to point b, and that's their only function. They do not host the content of the call.
They move the call from where it originates to another place. Much like Rackspace moves your data from your server to the person who requests it.
The person speaking can be thought of to be the content provider, and the person listening can be thought of to be the end user of that content, but the phone company has nothing to do with either party except to provide them the connection.
Yes, exactly. Just like a hosting provider.
Rackspace, however, does NOT provide the connection, but does in fact host the content.
Without a connection they'd be storing your server in a box, not hosting your data. But considering Rackspace offers uptime guarantees I'll assume you're just wrong again.
It's been established that the Ruby interpreter has been slower than most other interpreters. This was the regrettable case when I used Ruby last. I would be excited to learn that it has improved recently.
I'm sure it's always improving in some ways, but overall, no. And it seems generally accepted that it'll be that way - the syntax is more complex than usual, etc. And the community seems fairly willing, as a whole, to write C to work around the issue.
I simply think that the Ruby compiler issues are unfortunate
Really? Well, I guess you're in something where every percent counts, but I've never found a practical difference, I'm always IO bound, algorithm bound, etc. Whenever I get past inefficient algorithms and down to the last little speed difference I can always get more out by optimizing the rest of the problem, caching, etc, than rewriting in C. (Though I'm not massively C proficient.)
Though there are horrid counter-examples, like trying to write a game cheater that watched a large number of addresses and imported their values into irb. That got a bit slow when evaling a ton of things into various bindings and would have been much-better handled at a lower level.
Scripting engines do tend to make an incredible amount of comparisons.
And doing them with strings. Ouch. This is the sort of stuff I always find though, low-hanging fruit that vastly outweighs the general parsing costs.
Are you trying to say that Rackspace is an Internet Service Provider? I just want to be clear, because if you are, I'm absolutely stunned by the number of people on Slashdot who don't know what that term means.
By the literal meaning, they are.
It doesn't matter that they don't provide residential service.
Let me get this straight, you think that the only defense against liability is to ignore ALL content on your machines, and have NO terms of service agreement?
Yes. In a social fashion and roughly as a legal principle. That's how phone-companies work. If there's a complaint the police can call and get records, but they do absolutely no policing of content.
If they did screen, admitting it needs to be done, they could be found to be doing it badly. By keeping a hands-off policy they avoid the risk, legal and political.
That doesn't even make sense. If the plans are "illegal", the account would have to be shut down whether there's a TOS in place or not.
Yes, the police can get the phone company to terminate the service of someone breaking the law. But the phone company itself doesn't monitor calls for illegal content, nor shut anyone off themselves except for late payment.
In order for Rackspace to be a walled garden, it would require that people get Rackspace accounts, which enables them to only view Rackspace content without the option to access the greater Internet.
No, my point was that it sound silly. I didn't think you'd get so worked up about it.
I mean, what do they think, that they're creating some safe little AOL type thing? No, of course not. So all they're doing is caving to pressure and kicking an unpopular customer. In doing so they're establishing a practical, if not legal, precedent that they'll cave on their customers over anything that generates enough bad PR.
They should instead refuse the censor even the haters. Everyone finds something hateful - to some people mocking religion is a crime, to others it's a well-respected standup routine. And only a complete hands-off policy will protect them from justified complaints of bias towards some special interests.
If they agree with the special interest they should give them a free account specifically for the purpose of showing up the haters. That'd actually do something - otherwise the haters will just get another server and spew their stupid from darker corners.
All they've done this way is show they're unwilling to stand up for their customers.
What's sticking it to Apple about releasing open source in a "non certified" state? That's the whole point of open source, that users can choose how it works.
If Apple thinks they can exert control here they aren't really open source compatible except via the tivo-loophole and they need to be more honest about it.
And yeah, it's called "cooperation" in those air-quotes because it goes one way only. You sit and wait while Apple does who the hell knows what, leaves you hanging, and you "cooperate" by not discussing the issue on your blog where it might make them look bad.
And thus we have a demonstration of that "fight the power!" attitude I mentioned.
Do I get points if I called "Pretentious Dweeb" earlier in the evening? Or do I just score you under the bonus section?
But it's also still a curated platform, and Apple will maintain absolute and unflinching control over the end-user experience, period. There is no pretense or duplicity on this point. Anyone who's not comfortable with that fact ought to stay away from the platform.
Yeah, they're pretty clear about that.
They do support some FOSS, quite explicitly, and their agreements have been revised specifically to make this clear.
They support the bare minimum to qualify for the GPLv2 through the tivo-loophole. But that's not very open, and Apple shouldn't be calling themselves open-source friendly when their only concession is not refusing apps whose source has been published.
This is not a contradiction, and it's not arbitrary "cruelty",
Of course it's not arbitrary, like everything they do to their users it's to make them money. It's still a series of arbitrary restriction to the user, which amount to cruelty because they're intentional crippling of the device. Apple is going to more work to provide a lesser product simply because the user is more easily monetized.
And yes, it's a contradiction to open source. If you support open source you support the user doing what they want with their software. I am told that iPhone users can't even create applications for their own use, or modify open source, without paying to become developers or jailbreaking and pirating the tools. (Or is this incorrect?)
and being willing to work within this framework isn't "servile".
Yeah, it is. You just think it's worth it.
I didn't bother to read the rest of your response; I'll summarize all of it by stating you're very probably wrong in each particular and leaving the exact details as an exercise to far better informed readers than yourself.
As is customary I give you the last response since Apple Haters never cease talking no matter how far they end up digging a hole in their technical rep.
No, of course you didn't. You certainly didn't read it, fail to answer the points and run away.
You of course have an awesome answer to how you hand-wave away the risk that Apple just stalls your next project. I'm sure the problem is just that by now the post isn't wide enough to contain your wisdom.
Except you have to have access controls around video to limit it to registered developers - Doh! On your part there.
Except if you didn't limit it to developers you wouldn't need access controls. Doh, to you.
Yes, I can tell you're not a developer at all since you have no appreciation for SDK documentation and help. Wallowing in your own ignorance and proclaiming it good is hardly healthy I would say.
Do they want developers or not? I have no appreciation for a company that charges for development tools unless they include hardware.
Once they've had that developer's conference and recorded the video, and put it on the web, why can't they go that extra little bit and make it available to everyone?
Waiting until Apple can give feedback on it, as long as the wait is not too long, is a way to demonstrate to Apple that you're acting in good faith and attempting to comply with their policies and processes. It shows that if Apple finds a minor fault with the app and requests something be changed, they're willing to wait to incorporate those changes before letting non-compliant versions get "out into the wild".
What a toadying and servile response. It's open source, what the fuck business do they have saying they support it if they're trying to quash non-approved changes.
This is the state of Apple developers though, always sucking up and rationalizing away every cruel thing Apple does, as their world revolves so entirely around it.
Being a dick with your API, and refusing to let someone into your app store on technicalities certainly counts, is one of Microsoft's signature moves. Way to go Jobs, think just like the other shithead monopolist.
You have decided that the video was a war crime. No court has.
In fact I have not heard any court in the US or the UN even saying that it was war crime.
Not the video, the actions it records.
And since when did anyone ask the opinion of the perpetrators or the organizations they belong to? A war crime is in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Let me explain to you why this wasn't an illegal order first.
An order is illegal if it leads to any grave injustice, despite any legal aspect is may have.
1. The video was requested by the press. Not a court of law or a court order. The request was refused by the Civil government.
An uninformed electorate can't give consent. By definition a government that keeps secrets cannot be legitimate.
Such an order, to not release a video of the slaying of civilians for civilian oversight, is obviously illegal.
Manning was not ordered to suppress the video. He took it on himself to release the video.
I imagine standing orders covered the release of all information, but that's beside the point.
You're required to do the right thing. Anyone discovering unnecessarily classified recordings of a slaying would rightly suspect a cover-up, and thus be morally obliged to remove it.
Frankly none of the solders involved would have been hung a Nuremberg. They probably wouldn't even have gone to court. No military court would convict them.
No military court (of Germany) would have convicted the Nazis either.
I don't know what court you're imagining though where responding to charges that you murdered civilian rescuers can be answered with "Serves them right for bringing their kids into battle".
Please you are trying to tell me that you didn't know that a journalist was killed in a helicopter action?
Hadn't heard that piece of news specifically, no. And the stories I've since seen didn't say his camera was mistaken for a rocket launcher leading to his death and that of many other innocent victims.
Or that Civilans had been caught in such actions?
That some civilians are caught by mistake, yes. That they're in our guys sights, totally unable to escape, and we won't even take basic measures to see if they are enemies despite our operating in a civilian occupied area, no. I didn't know we were quite that sloppy when we have the time and tools to do better.
And I didn't know they'd brush off the killing of the rescuers, blaming the victims, instead of treating it like a mistake and trying to prevent it in the future.
That's where accident crossed the line to war crime.
I know this will tick you off but I watched the video. [And I agree]
No, you've got a third-grade writing level and an intellect to match. I expect you to see what you've been told to expect, to make snap judgments, and to bend facts to support your views.
I expect better in oversight roles in our army though.
You were the one who chose to interpret that as Java being slow.
Knowing what the anti-VM crowd harp on is different than choosing to interpret it.
Ruby interoping with native libraries is cheating.
Yeah sure. A well written program spends as much time in native libraries as possible.
Games programmers actually profile their code
If you do, Bethesda has a role you because they sure as hell don't. Oblivion spends most of its time comparing strings. Or maybe they just optimized that strcmp really well.